Scouring Of The Temple
by TheSilverWizard
Summary: Amidst the rubble of the Jedi order, the survivors are scrambling desperatly to stay alive amongst the murderers. Only One Jedi now can save the order before its too late. Serra Keto prepares too stop the Sith, once and for all.
1. Arrival

Serra Keto examined the ruins of the temple library around her. The bodies of the fallen Jedi lay scourged all around her, and many of the temple's archives lay destroyed or had been thieved. The many sections of the library were also littered with the bodies of clones. Familiar traces of Jedi she knew, and the scents of masters she had respected floated in the force, but they were only paths. They had all perished, along with many clones. Except one…

She hesitated on her way out. There was another familiar presence in the force, and it had calmly walked out the door she was standing in, a few minutes prior. Her emotions darkened as she identified the source.

The chosen one, the traitor, had walked through this door, with a clone escort.

Skywalker had done this.

Anger pulsated through her. It worsened as she examined the bodies of the fallen Jedi, reminding her that they had failed, that they were not strong enough to defend their order.

That they had fallen fighting the presence of evil in there very home.

Tears came to her eyes, as she examined the bodies of the clones. The evil soldiers who blindly followed the new sith lord to destroy the Jedi. So far they were succeeding…

A calming surge of the force entered through her, and she remembered what it was too be a Jedi. She took a deep breath, let go of pain, and the fallen Jedi before her. She then walked through the door.

"Alas! Lament for my fallen brothers and sisters in the force" she cried to herself as she passed through the door. "Alas! Alas! 'Tis a sorrowful day indeed."

Serra Keto, Jedi Knight, former general of the royal clone army of the republic, Ventress of Rhen Var, and beloved apprentice of the fallen Cin Drallig was still alive and continued to serve the living force, and the remains of the shattered Jedi order.

The force suddenly warned her that clones were approaching. Serra turned her head towards the door, and heard the voices of clones drawing near. She smiled. Even though clones had destroyed her allies, she was not afraid.

Fear is the path to the dark side.

She raised a gloved hand towards the approaching murderers, and felt into the depths of the force with her mind. She found the minds of the clones whom were approaching, and focused on them.

Then with one swift stroke of the force, she smothered them.

Serra felt their existence fade in seconds, and when they did, she heard the thump! of their armor as it collided with the temple's floor beneath her feet. She smiled as a crack of thunder resounded in the distance, and a small rain began to fall on the writhing structure of the burning Jedi temple.

But hate is the path to the dark side, and she let her hate flow out of her. She turned and walked through the doors down towards the security room. A warning in the force stopped her approach and she listened by the door.

There were more clone troops within. The force told her there were four of them. All with Verendak-styled rocket launchers, armed, and ready to fire.

Again Serra reached into the force and found their minds. She then focused on their minds and the force whispered in their heads. Confused, they looked around for the source, but could see no one. Serra focused harder, and the attention span on the clones halted, and they swayed back and forth, as if in a trance.

She entered, smiling, as the guards swayed back and forth, unable to comprehend her entrance. A current of the force carried her two lightsabers to her hands, and activated them.

Next moment all four members of squadron 38 fell dead to the ground, decapitated.

"All too easy," She said as she stepped over the corpses, and approached the security mechanism. She did not even need to read the security labeling. In the force she felt its message. It was ordering all Jedi to report back to the temple. It declared the war was over, and the Jedi council had ordered the safe return of all Jedi.

Serra bowed her head. The force was telling her that this was not her mission. She had another enemy to defeat. Another Jedi would recalibrate the code. Her job was with the chosen one. This Darth Sidious would also have to be apprehended.

Suddenly the force cried out in her mind. Igniting her Lightsaber, she parried with her back to the door, and a blaster bolt, fired by an assassin clone reunited with its master, and the clone fell dead to the ground. She turned around, and examined her defeated foe at her feet.

A pattering of feet down the hall informed her that her presence had become noticed.

"Must they always walk blindly down the halls they trod, of which they do not belong?" she asked herself as she began to walk towards the door. "I shall put them out of their misery!"

Serra emerged from the security room with both Lightsabers drawn and parried in her classic Jareq-Da guard. The clones noticed her and raised their weapons. "Drop your weapons Jedi!" they ordered

Serra's only response was to angle them in a cross before her.

A clone walked forward wearing the yellow-green clashed colors on his white helmet. The symbol of a clone commander. He pointed at Serra and ordered "Fire!" to his clones.

Serra caught the blasts flying towards her, on her lightsabers and reflected them back towards the clones. She then advanced, cutting down more troops as she came on. Their heavy gunfire was not match for her quick and smooth reflexive movements, and she had the force to guide her.

A playful smile came unbidden to her lips as she easily dodged the clone's intensive fire. Outside the temple a heavy storm was falling on the ruined form of the temple. She breathed in, in the force and felt the storms power. She located the source of the storm directly above the temple. In reality, Serra saw many more troops approaching, and a heavy machine gun had been set up, with which to take down Jedi starfighters was turning towards her.

With her wrath, she formed a massive bolt of lightning within the clouds and aimed its course directly for the machine gun.

With an explosion, the machine gun imploded, and the corpses of the clones sprawled out across the floor.


	2. Discovery

As she gently streaked across the floor, a cry for help was heard. She flashed her head to the side, and within her own beloved fighter a massive collection of children, some no more then eight, all the way up to Jedi knights, had taken shelter in her fighter. She rushed over to them, and some of the smaller children rushed over to her crying. In the force she could feel their fear, and in some of the older students, anger.

There were only about thirty of them. Serra raised her head from the shaking body of a petrified ten-year-old female apprentice, to look a fellow Jedi fair in the eye.

"Are we all that is left?" She asked, praying that he would not respond.

He seemed to understand something in her eyes, and merely nodded.

Something in Serra broke loose, and she felt rage building up inside her that she could not dispel. All was lost, and the chosen one had betrayed them all. How would the order survive?

Suddenly a young one cried out and pointed. Serra turned to look, and saw a clone soldier aiming at her heart. In her haste to hold the young ones, she had withdrawn her lightsabers. No trick of the force would be able to save her now. Except one…

Knowing that she would regret this for the rest of her life, however short it may be, she had no choice. She had a duty to keep. All this passed through her head in less then one second, and within that same time the clone was preparing to pull the trigger of his blaster, and Serra was raising one hand.

Concentrating all her hate upon that one soldier, Serra let loose a barrage of lightning from her hand. The dazzling blue hatred clawed through the air towards the soldier who had no time to react. His shot was devoured by the lightning that now sought to purge him. Within seconds his life burned away as Serra's hate consumed him whole in the shape of blue lightning.

As the corpse of the clone fell to the ground, Serra jerked her hand back, and the lightning ceased. She collapsed on the floor ashamed of herself.

Anger and hate were not the Jedi way.

Anger and hate is the path to the dark side.

The younglings picked Serra up, and looked into her tear-stained face. As she caught sight of their faces, she slowly mastered herself. As she rose to her feet, she looked at all the only survivors of the evil order 66. They would have to escape. She would seek out Skywalker and confront him, while the survivors fled.

She gave this order and prepared to leave. As she watched her beloved spaceship rise into the air, and blast into the atmosphere, escaping the clutches of the sith, she reflected that she was the last living Jedi in the temple.

And she was not afraid.

Skywalker's presence was near. He must've been informed by some foul mouth of her existence in the temple. Hatred was emanating forth from him in the force, but also confusion and pain. She felt it, there was still good, but it had been pushed down, annihilated by the dark side.

Skywalker was a walking terror. And he must be stopped before he could completely destroy everything.

With peace, with reverence, without hate, and without fear, Serra advanced to meet this black hole of the force.


	3. Engaging Lord Vader

Serra walked out in front of him, looking him full in the face. He was human, mostly. His face…

Wasn't.

Yellow eyes burned beneath the mask of Darth Vader. The handsome features of Anakin Skywalker, whom she had once admired, were no more. This fearsome terror, eaten alive by fear, knew no reason, and was only fueled by hate.

The only cure for a manifestation this deep was death.

And she would personally distribute the cure to him.

Vader's black speech rang out across the room as he spoke, "Serra, Cin Drallig's most accomplished apprentice has come to greet me."

Her blood ran cold at his words, but she remained calm. "You shouldn't have come her Skywalker." She responded coldly.

In the force, Serra felt his anger climb at the mention of his former name, and his rage burned in the force like a fusion torch.

"Apprentices should have more respect for their masters" Vader said darkly as he began to descend the steps towards her.

Serra's response was too ignite her twin lightsabers at his approach. She raised them in a cross before her, and she angled her body, ready to spring away or towards him.

Vader smiled an evil smile, and a horribly dark laugh rang throughout the room. Serra closed her ears, and was not swayed by the very scent of the dark side that enveloped from his breath.

Vader raised his blade, and a fountain of blue energy protruded from the hilt, as he spring up, and landed beside her.

Without hesitation she whipped both his blades in a crack towards his head. He lazily raised his blade to parry, and she disengaged one blade, to strike at his knee. He carried her other blade with his, and parried her strike. He stepped backwards allowing her to strike. She swung quickly, and with a crack! Both strikes were parried in time.

Vader was toying with her!

She stepped backwards examining her foe. He shook his head, and remained in position.

"What's the matter Annie?" She asked mockingly. "Attack, unless you are afraid?"

The result was entirely unexpected.

Skywalker's power surged beyond comprehension, and she barely avoided a surge from the force that would have blown her all the way to Endor. As she turned towards him, an enormous blast of lightning erupted from the young sith's fingers, and threatened to engulf her whole.

Serra raised her lightsabers barely in time and caught the lightning, some bolts as big as she was, and with all her strength threw them back at Skywalker.

Vader snarled, and intensified his power. Serra cringed as some of the electricity, uncompressed by her blades, began to lick at her body. She angled her blades towards the nearby security computer, and with an explosion it blew up, knocking them both down.

Serra reached out into the force towards the pillar of Veini-Kan, and brought the entire statue to the ground, in the hopes of crushing Vader. But it failed, as Vader rolled out of its path, and the structure separated them.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Serra leaped into the air, and landed on the second floor. Vader rose to his feet, and watched her flee into the second hall. Calling on the force, he landed directly behind her, suckering a curse as he missed a slash to her legs.

Serra turned around and faced him, angling her blades in a block-styled formation. Vader approached her, not waiting to give her the advantage of the first strike. He struck quickly and powerfully, and Serra could not believe the young man's power. His agility was increased in the force, and he struck three times per second. His face had vanished, and only yellow eyes, burning with hate and suffering, shined beneath the mass of darkness that was Darth Vader.

Serra seemed to fall into a machine of habit. The force now controlled her body. She no longer truly existed as an independent being; she was only a servant to the force, completely submerged within it. As Vader struck at her knees' she responded by parrying, and a kick to his face. When Vader hurled a piece of rubble at her, she slashed it in half, and continued advancing.

Although the fight seemed to be faring well for her, it was not. She was beginning to tire, and Vader was only growing stronger with each passing stroke. As she looked up desperately, she saw only power and evil in those yellow eyes, and the revelation that she would not win this fight.

Indeed it was only after this vision that Vader aimed a kick at her, which she could not see coming. She fell backwards across the floor, both lightsabers falling out of her grasp.

This might have been the end of Serra if the sith lord had not seen something that interested him. He kicked a Jedi corpse over onto its back, and motioned with his Lightsaber for her too look. She stared at the body, and when she did, she wished that he had killed her instead.

The dead face of Cin Drallig stared at her.

The Sith laughed as he watched Serra's expression of horror at the sight of her fallen master. "He put up a good fight, trying to save his younglings. But I killed them all the same. A pity" he added, "you could not have been there to die alongside your beloved master."

And with that Serra lost all control. Her hatred surged, all anger revoked to destroy this one beast, this one terror that had stolen everything dear to her. Her love to the republic, and to the order, and he had killed both of them.

Her lightsabers leaped back to her hands, and ignited. She rose to her feet, nearly smothered with rage. The sith's expression faltered as he stared at her. She rose up, and began hacking at him, determined to destroy him, to eradicate his entire existence.

Vader's smile turned to a snarl as he locked blades with this enraged Jedi. He threw her backwards, but she remained on her feet. He released a push through the force, but she withdrew both her blades with supernatural speed, and a force-push of her stopped her path, and then a force-push of her own blew him over the rail, and back down to the first floor.

Serra rushed towards the railing, but a voice in the force begged her to calm down.

It was the voice of her former master Cin Drallig.

Serra drew in a deep breath. When she exhaled, she exhaled her fears, her anxieties, her anger, and her hate. She then turned and drew her lightsabers. Then she leaped after Lord Vader who had withdrawn from sight.

But not from battle…


	4. Ultimate Fate

Serra cautiously examined around the battlefield. Skywalker was nowhere in sight. The evening had passed, and morning had arrived. She could hear heavy gunfire outside, and wondered if more Jedi had been found.

Tears formed in her eyes. OR had more Jedi had come home to the trap she had failed to spring?

But she had no time to discover which it was. The force hummed a warning in her bones, and she turned around to see Vader hurtling towards her. She blocked his blow, and continued fighting him all the way down the hall until they arrived at the foot of the great pyramid.

And she was cornered.

The foot of the great pyramid was a hidden docking bay used mainly by the padawans to practice piloting. The few starships there were available to any Jedi needing to perform a task, without the aid of their own starship.

But only a Jedi could access the gateway. A hidden compartment door that led to the starfighters was only accessible by swinging off the railing and down through the door. If you missed the doorway, it was a thousand foot drop to the very depths of the great city. For this reason it was rarely used, and only by the older skilled Jedi. Or the padawans who practiced parking starships here.

For a second time Serra and Vader were locked in a clash of their lightsabers, both fighting for the upper hand. Dark power bore down Serra, and she began to be pushed backwards down onto the floor.

Suddenly Serra gained the upper-hand and attempted to behead him. Her slash missed and instead cut a pillar behind him, as he retreated backwards. She turned and faced him, but his evil smile revealed her mistake. He raised a hand, and the current in the force was tugging at the pillar next to her. It started to fall down at her incredibly fast like a warrior swinging down a heavy mace.

Knowing she had lost, Serra leaped backwards, so instead of crushing her, it merely pushed her even further backwards. As she fell she swung herself into the hidden door, and into the closed fighter station.

Without risking any time she rushed to a cockpit, and leaped into one of the starfighters. The force activated it for her, and she immediately angled it to blast into the atmosphere.

As she left she examined the ruined wreck of the Jedi Temple, 25,000 years annihilated in one single day. She bowed her head; she had failed her order, and the Jedi were now finished. She would seek her next options of how to strike at the new empire among the safety of the stars.

_As her starfighter left for the stars, two Jedi masters had defeated a full rank of clones and were now advancing for the security console that was luring all surviving Jedi into a deadly trap._

_A young sith lord, who had once been known as Anakin Skywalker watched the starfighter of Serra Keto vanish into the stars above, and he went to rejoin his master._

_A starship blasted into the infinite reaches of the galaxy with its course set for the safety of Rhen Var bearing the last largest group of surviving Jedi._

_And as Serra Keto wept over her failed mission, she received a hailing signal from the ship of Senator Bail Organa, and went to join the crew to take shelter…_


End file.
